Over the last 20 years, there has been a heated debate over one of the elements on the periodic table. Carbon is an essential building block of life on Earth, based on its ability to form stable bonds with other elements. It played a transformational role in fueling the Industrial Revolution and creating our modern way of life. Today, a new chapter is emerging.
Beyond its role in sustaining life, carbon possesses a set of material properties that are not widely understood. These properties, rooted in its unique chemistry and structure, offer a number of potential and significant benefits to our modern society. We are just now discovering that coal, as a carbon-rich resource, can be used in a variety of high-tech, high-performance manufacturing applications.
One such application is carbon foam. Coal can be engineered into a high performance foam material with a number of surprising characteristics. It has low density, is resistant to heat and fire, is corrosion-resistant, and offers a high strength-to-weight ratio. It can also be machined into complex shapes and provides electromagnetic shielding capabilities. These properties make it well suited for industries where materials are exposed to extreme thermal and mechanical conditions such as aerospace and defense.
Carbon’s ability to support electrical conductivity also makes it relevant in the context of electrification. As demand increases to support data centers, electric vehicles, and other energy-intensive systems, material performance becomes increasingly important. R&D efforts suggest that carbon can be used at scale as a high-performance anode material in lithium-ion batteries, to address energy density, battery cycle life, recharging times, and materials sourcing challenges.
Beyond this, as global demand for construction and infrastructure continues to rise, carbon-rich feedstocks, including coal by-products, can be incorporated into composite building materials. When combined with recycled plastics, these materials can improve durability, resist moisture, maintain low thermal expansion, and meet fire and building standards—all while making use of resources that might otherwise go unused.
The conversation around reducing carbon emissions will continue. But non-combustible uses of carbon present an entirely new paradigm for its future. After all, carbon is one of our most abundant natural resources on Earth, and every human being is made up of roughly 18.5% carbon.
It’s time we embrace carbon and its incredible properties as a promising feedstock across a range of industries and applications. Carbon has the potential to help propel us into space, advance aerospace and defense technologies, and support long-term energy storage solutions, which will all be critical in transforming our future—for a second time.
